Rektor’s Address – A New Term

2018-10-16T09:32:32+01:00August 24th, 2016|

An extract from our Rektor’s opening address at the first College Meeting of term for students and staff:

I must admit to having been gripped with Olympic fever over recent weeks – and the force of the Olympics to unite nations through sport.

Conversation, companionship and compassion

Conversation, companionship and compassion

We, within the United World College movement, see our role as to sustain peace, not through sport, but through education. The Olympic symbol of the five interlocking rings, designed in 1912, represents the union of the five regions of the world and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games. Our UWC logo of two rings, encompassing the globe within, echoes this symbol of unity.

The Olympics, hosted by the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, caught many of our imaginations with more than 10,000 athletes, representing 207 nations, competing in 31 sports, with 306 medals awarded. It has been reported that there were 3,7 billion people actively engaged through media with the Rio Olympics out of a world population of 7.4 billion with 350 million people watching the opening ceremony.

Controversy of course followed the Olympics: political protests, Zika, empty seats, doping bans, unsporting behaviour, alongside the triumph and disaster of the competitors.

We will all have our favourite moments.

I have chosen two of my favourite parts of the Olympics for today’s opening address as we set out on a new academic year at RCN:

Firstly, the initiative for a refugee team competing under the flag of the International Olympic Committee – in the spirit of solidarity.

Six men and four women from South Sudan, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

As Yonas Kinde, the marathon runner originally from Ethiopia explained to the world press: ‘We are equal now. We compete like human beings, like the others’ – sending a message of hope to all refugees in the world.

Inclusion. We see you.

A new graffiti mural in Rio now honours the individual members of the first Olympic Refugee Team.

Helping each otherSecondly, one of the most moving moments of the games was when a New Zealand and an American runner stopped to help each other after a collision in their heat for the 5000 metres. An encapsulation, for me, of the Olympic spirit.

The values of friendship, respect, harmony and peace are at the heart of both Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic movement’s vision and the vision of the United World College movement. The games provide us with an opportunity to gather every four years, when the world is often faced with turbulence and trouble – and to strive to celebrate what is best about mankind.

With the Olympics in mind and as we set out on the next academic year, we must all seek to do, and be, the best we can.

Ridderdagene- Activities for All

2018-10-16T09:32:33+01:00August 24th, 2016|

Five students from the Knights EAC drove ten hours with Hilde to take part in Ridderdagene in the South-East part of Norway – and had a fantastic time there over the weekend of 18th to 21st August.

Ridderdagene (The Days of the Knights) is a weekend where many volunteers do all they can to make summer sports and activities accessible and inclusive for people with various kinds of disabilities. Every year since Ridderdagene took place for the first time in 2013, the College has sent a delegation of students and staff to volunteer and take part in the event. It was very nice to meet people who remember UWC RCN students from previous years and from the big winter sport event – Ridderrennet.

The bikersAnyone can take part in the Saturday bicycle races, where you set your own targets: to make it until the finish line; beat your own personal record; or, if you are more ambitious, try to keep up with laureates from the Paralympics. Mean and Sreythai, both Cambodian students in the Survivors of Conflict programme, represented UWC RCN brilliantly by biking respectively 40 and 5 kilometres with the times 1 hour 46 minutes (40 km) and 16,5 minutes (5 km).

Apart from the bicycle race, there are lots of other activities for children, youth and adults – like horseback riding, yoga, an obstacle course, sailing, canoeing, painting classes for children or a walk through the sense garden which is especially designed to give blind people an interesting experience.

We lived with the scouts and some other participants in a tent camp on Erling Stordahl’s farm and got to know participants and volunteers through participation in activities and by sharing meals around the outdoor dining table that the scouts had made. Erling Stordahl wanted to use sports and culture as arenas where people with different kinds of disabilities can meet and integrate. According to Stordahl, we are all disabled, somehow, and we just need to find our own ways to take part in things. This year the cultural part of Ridderdagene was mainly opera and classical music performed in a very inviting, child friendly and funny way, and our very own Mai charmed everybody with a beautiful song about Vietnam.

More information and pictures are found on facebook and the Ridderdagene webpage.

Pellegrino Riccardi – Seminars at RCN

2018-10-16T09:32:33+01:00August 23rd, 2016|

On Monday, Pellegrino Riccardi was invited to the College on the recommendation of Hilde Genberg (RCN’s Survivors of Conflict Programme Coordinator and formerly the College coordinator of the Fredskorps Partnership) – Hilde had previously heard Pellegrino speak at the annual FK summer camp on inter-cultural understanding.

Pellegrino addressing staffWe put together a programme for Pellegrino so that he could run a seminar for our second years (with the intention of helping them to prepare for and reflect on the arrival of the incoming first years) and so that he could run a training session for our Education Staff (with an open invitation tour Support Staff) on intercultural communication and understanding given our deliberately diverse student and staff bodies. The training was insightful, humorous and thought-provoking – and we certainly hope to invite Pellegrino back to our campus for further training.

The training for staff also complemented the training delivered in our Staff Introduction Week on the three pillars (Nordic, Humanitarian and Environmental), communication skills and a (re)introduction to inter-cultural understanding.

For more information on Pellegrino’s work, click here for his website and here for a link to Ted Talk he delivered in Bergen.

Dan Silfwerin – A Star is Born

2016-08-21T15:24:34+01:00August 21st, 2016|

On Sunday 21st August our very own Dan Silfwerin (Swedish and English teacher) was invited to perform in the finale of  ‘Mimi Goes Glamping’ at Åmot Operagard. The Bergen National Opera created a community opera based on the local Fjaler kommune story Murmartinstein i Fjella (Murmartinstein in the mountains).

Bergen National Opera’s director Tom Guthrie and chorus master Håkon Matti Skrede worked with members of the local community to build this opera based on folk music and songs – it also featured Sir Thomas Allen, one of the world’s most accomplished singers, in the role as the troll.

There was a large contingent of UWC RCN staff and families supporting Dan at the finale of the festival.

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